At the Edge of Ireland Read online

  A couple of miles beyond Allihies, past that beautiful beach, and almost at the tip of the peninsula, a narrow lane leaves the main loop road and heads down through bosky, sheep-dotted hills. A sign reads DURSEY ISLAND and offers a rough handpainted timetable for the infamously tiny cable car contraption (the only one in Ireland) linking the peninsula with this tiny four-mile-long island. We made a mental note to visit sometime, little knowing what a ghastly Pandora’s box of cruel history we’d discover here. But that, as they say, is another story.

  THE ROAD NOW SWUNG abruptly eastward as we began the second segment of our “Ring” drive, traveling along the southern shore of the peninsula by the broad, sparkling Bantry Bay. Moors and meadows suddenly opened out into truly majestic vistas. The land dropped away abruptly into small farms and grazings. To the south we could clearly see the last two of the five peninsulas of southwest Ireland—Sheep’s Head (very rural) and Mizen Head (celebrated by more discerning travelers seeking respite from the self-conscious charms of Cork, Cobh, and the Kinsale region).

  Closer in we finally spotted the capital of Beara, the lively fishing community of Castletownbere nestled beneath the Slieve Miskish mountains and sheltered from erratic bay weather by the languorous green dome of Bere Island. This was once a major Royal Navy base when Britain and Ireland were united, until its closure in 1938. The British were most reluctant to leave what was generally recognized as being the largest natural harbor in Europe, and it took more than a decade to organize their final departure. Winston Churchill was particularly anxious to keep it as a base during World War II and even hinted at a return of Northern Ireland to the Republic—a deal that never materialized. Fortunately, around two hundred devoted residents have discovered what an enchanting hidden place this is (in the midst of the larger hidden place of Beara itself). It’s served by two regular ferries from Castletownbere, dotted with late-eighteenth-century Martello watchtowers; a Bronze Age “wedge tomb” thought to date from around 2000 BC; a prominent ten-foot-high standing stone; and remnants of British gun emplacements and forts, all still in surprisingly good condition.

  Castletownbere itself (also once known as Castletown Bear-haven) is a pure delight, particularly in terms of sketch-worthy subjects when the huge, often Spanish and Portuguese fishing trawlers cram the harbor wharves here. But equally appealing are the more hedonistic aspects of life here—the town’s pubs, restaurants, and stores—and, for the truly overindulgent and overaffluent—the reincarnated Puxley mansion at nearby Dunboy Castle.

  When we first arrived on Beara there were only rumors and whispers of bizarre schemes to reuse the shell of the mansion, destroyed by the IRA in 1921, long after the Puxleys had left and closed the disappointingly nonproductive copper mines in 1884. Many of the unemployed miners immigrated en masse at that time to Butte, Montana, and Beara families still maintain close ties today—including one moving and live video reunion we attended organized in Castletownbere.

  Eventually plans were published for a $100 million “six-star” resort hotel featuring Ritz-Carlton management, and imaging itself as a “secret hideaway” for celebrities seeking solace from the ubiquitous paparazzi, a Michelin-starred restaurant, pools, luxury spa facilities, a vast wine cellar vault, and, naturally, a helicopter landing pad—even a special house for the colonies of Lesser Horseshoe bats that once occupied the ruined mansion. All were part of this very non-Beara type of project.

  Some locals thought the whole venture was merely a clever “never-happen” gimmick to spur speculation in the proposed mini “leisure-village” developments on the peninsula—but apparently not. The project is now completed, and while rather alien to the “undiscovered” ambience here, its exclusivity, according to the developers, will ensure “minimal disturbance” to the everyday life of Castletownbere (“except m’be make us a little richer for a change with all those new jobs and whatnot” according to one of the locals here).

  There’s none of this “starred” nonsense, however, in the restaurants and watering holes in town, most of which are clustered around or close to the main square. In addition to the now world-famous red-and-black facade of MacCarthy’s Bar and Grocery, it was reassuring to find a cornucopia of culinary delights in the form of O’Donoghue’s, O’Sullivan’s, Breen’s, O’Shea’s, The Copper Kettle (great soups and fruit pies), Murphy’s, The Hole in the Wall, The Olde Bakery, Cronin’s Hideaway, Comara, Twomey’s, and Jack Patrick’s, run by the local butcher and his wife and renowned for its traditional Irish cuisine. And then of course came the two hotels—Beara Bay and Cametringame, complete with their own bars and nightlife enclaves.

  One of the most popular local dishes in the pubs and restaurants here is the ubiquitous Irish mixed grill. And according to the celebrated writer John B. Keane, this is the ideal list of key ingredients: “A medium-sized lamb chop, two large fat sausages, four slices of pudding—two black and two white—one back bacon rasher and one streaky, a sheep’s kidney, a slice of pig’s liver, a large portion of potato chips [French fries], a decent mound of steeped green peas, a large pot of tea and all the bread and butter one could wish for…authorities are divided as to whether fried eggs should be included or not.” So—there it is. A gourmand’s checklist to ensure no culinary short-changes!

  And what a gourmand’s checklist of Brit-Irish goodies awaited us when we had a quick walk around the town’s compact and cluttered supermarket: crumpets, Birds Eye custard, Callard & Bowser’s butterscotch, sandwich spread, Marmite, HP sauce, treacle sponge and spotted dick in cans, piccalilli, jelly babies, Oxo cubes, Fry’s cream bars, Gentlemen’s Relish, Rolos, pickled onions, Lucozade, Robinsons Lemon Barley Squash, and on and on. Gorgeous!

  For a community of fewer than two thousand permanent residents (itinerant Spanish, French, and Portuguese fishermen and “blow-ins” of all nationalities rapidly increase the population), Castletownbere was a true ceadsearch (sweetheart) of a town that gave us many memorable evenings of céilís and craic. On one occasion a barman showed us a descriptive clipping of the town dating back to 1920 with the comment that “ah can’t see as things have changed much in nigh on a century!”

  Thirteen trawlers from Bilbao, Spain, arrived today and the streets were crowded with brown men, holy medals around their necks, deeply religious oaths on their lips, merriment and good nature in their eyes, bundles of silk stockings and bottles of lethal Iberian brandy under their jerkins. The stockings and the brandy they would barter for anything available. The dances in the hall beside the harbor were a sight to see. You wouldn’t know under God what country you were in.

  Whatever country it is, it’s certainly going “green” rapidly and responsibly. In the grocery stores you pay a fee for every plastic bag you need; NO SMOKING signs are everywhere (despite the threatened bar-boycotts by petulant puffers), and just on the edge of town is one of the most sophisticated recycling centers we’ve ever seen anywhere. This is no simple triparate glass, metal, and plastic depository. Instead there are over twenty separate collection sections for four different oils; three different glass types; five different paper bins, plus special containers for “small computers,” “large TV sets,” aerosol cans, car batteries, domestic batteries, fluorescent lights, and even plastic bottle tops!

  EASING EASTWARD OUT PAST the town’s modern hospital, a scattering of sedate B and Bs, a couple of enticing arts and crafts galleries, and a very appealing golf course overlooking Bantry Bay, we became increasingly aware of numerous small roadside signs for archeological sites.

  “It says here in the local guide map,” Anne told me, “that ‘over six hundred sites have been identified so far on Beara, ranging from wedge graves, stone circles, and ring forts to ancient church sites and, at seventeen feet high, the world’s tallest ogham stone just outside Eyeries.’”

  “And what pray tell is an ogham stone?”

  “Just a minute—I’ve seen something…ah—here…it says, ‘There are over three hundred still existing in Ireland and they usuall
y mark important graves…The vertical script carved into the stone consists of a series of twenty different incisions based on Latin. The notches represent vowels and the slanting or straight strokes are consonants. The words themselves are usually found to be old Irish and are considered proof of a literate society dating back at least to 400 AD.’”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Yes, it is. And y’know, there’s something really magical about this whole peninsula. You feel as if you’re being lured into a very ancient place—a place that was possibly much more populated in prehistoric times than it is today. Presences…I can sense them. Can’t you?”

  I’m not normally very tuned in to such psychic nuances, but I had to agree with my ultrasensitive partner. There was definitely a sense of well-organized layers of historic occupation here—or maybe, as a friend of ours used to say, “a captivating casserole of primitive cultures.”

  Derreenataggart Stone Circle

  And if we’d read the guidebook a little more carefully we’d have realized that we were only a few miles from one of the most significant sites in southwest Ireland—the great Derreenataggart Stone Circle—a place we later came to know well.

  We passed the great gray bastion of Hungry Hill with its famous seven-hundred-foot waterfall (Europe’s highest) fed by two small lakes, and laced with waterfalls following a sudden rainstorm over the Caha range. Tumbling streams cascaded down the deeply gullied, elephant-hide-like strata, then split and splintered into sheened silver cascades. At the base of the mountain they surged in peaty froth and fury and raged down narrow serpentining streambeds across the long slow slopes of brown-green moor. Whirling like out-of-control dervishes, the streams roiled around boulders bigger than Beara’s famous standing stones, ultimately surging under and occasionally over the coast road and out into the vast stillness of Bantry Bay. It was a most impressive sight, and we wondered at the fury of the storm as it ripped across the bare rock summit. That was not a place, we agreed, that we’d like to be.

  The terrain then began to stretch itself languorously into a wider coastal plain dotted with farms and sleepy communities like little Derreen, Adrigole, and Tratrask. Once again we were tempted to turn inland and cross over the peninsula on the dramatic Healy Pass road but resisted, promising ourselves a more leisurely trip later on in the month. We continued along the coast road, past the impressive bulk of Sugar Loaf Mountain and—finally—down a long winding descent into Glengarriff, end point of our first “Ring” drive.

  Like Kenmare, this is definitely a town of Victorian distinction and self-conscious promotion. It boasts fine hotels and restaurants for “main highway” trade on the dramatically tunneled Caha Pass road to Killarney and beyond. The pubs are plastered with signs for “authentic Irish folk music céilí evenings.” Souvenir stores do a roaring trade in everything from hefty Aran island sweaters, hand-carved shepherd’s crooks, and Waterford crystal to budget bins full of fluffy little toys with Irish Tom O’Shanter hats, dainty shamrock-decorated spoons, and the inevitable black T-shirts with prominent GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU logos. This is no longer wild Beara country, but despite all the commercialism (and notorious plagues of summer midges), it does offer three distinct attractions. Perhaps best known is Garinish Island, locally called Illnacullin, where a quirky Gulf Stream microclimate of high humidity and almost subtropical temperatures enabled the creation of an internationally renowned Italianate “Garden Paradise” on a tiny island a short distance from the shore of Bantry Bay. This unique little masterwork of exotic flora and fauna was created around 1910 and later became a favorite hideaway for George Bernard Shaw, who according to local lore wrote much of his play Saint Joan here among the exuberant gardens and delicate architectural “follies,” while amused by the antics of seal colonies on the rocky shoals around the island.

  An even more exotic creation is the nearby Bamboo Park heralded by a large Japanese gateway and offering meandering paths and bay vistas framed by explosions of bamboo groves and tropical jungle enclaves.

  The Bamboo Park—Glengarriff

  But perhaps the most enticing—and authentic—attraction here is the Glengarriff (or Gougane, which translates as “rugged glen”) Forest Park, a large swathe of rare native oak woodland that once covered much of Ireland. This was a favorite haunt of such celebrated authors as William Makepeace Thackeray and Sir Walter Scott, and today hikers and avid nature lovers can vanish for days in this vast scenic—almost subalpine—wonder world of wild streams, shadowy gorges, waterfalls, and a silence that is so refreshing after the in-season tourist crush of the town itself.

  Signs at Glengarriff pointed enticingly southward to Bantry, a delightful market town (famous for the produce stands of local cheese makers and other artisans) arced around the eastern tip of Bantry Bay and watched over by the graceful Queen Anne–styled Bantry House, built around 1700 and home to an eclectic collection of art and ornate furnishings, and magnificent gardens. The two remaining southwest peninsulas of Sheep’s Head and Mizen Head are to the south, and then eastward are Skibbereen and ultimately Kinsale, Cobh, and Cork. All very tempting destinations. But Anne, as usual, was the one to return us to a semblance of normalcy:

  “Excuse me, but I wish you’d stop dreaming of driving south. We’re here on Beara and there’s now the rather significant question of precisely where are we going to live!”

  “Live?”

  “A house, a cottage, a bungalow. Y’know, preferably near the ocean, near a village with decent pubs and a well-stocked grocery store, and…”

  “Ah, yes…”

  “Y’remember now? We’re got nowhere to live at the moment…like tonight, for example!”

  “Well, the lady we spoke to on the phone said she had a couple of options…”

  “Yes, that’s true. So how about if we turn around, head back to Castletownbere, and go and take a look at what she’s offering. They all seemed very charming on her Web site, but we need to go and check them out. Let’s go…it’ll be fun!” (Anne is always very convincing when she plays the role of trip coordinator.)

  “Yes. You’re right. Check them out. Definitely. Great idea.”

  No reply. But it didn’t matter, because I knew she was raring to set up a new home in a new place, with new places to food shop, new dishes to cook, and with who-knew-what experiences ahead.

  And what the charming lady with the bungalows to rent had said to us about her properties turned out to be absolutely true.

  Within a couple of hours we’d selected an almost brand-new fully furnished bungalow for a “just-affordable” rent close to that beautiful white Ballydonegan Beach just below Allihies. By sunset we were sitting at our outdoor picnic table sipping a fine fruity pinot noir together as the brilliant flare of evening light turned everything golden. Shadows eased slowly across amber grasses and we could hear the soft susurrus of surf on the sand and we were very, very happy, bathed together in tranquil splendor.

  We had arrived safely on Beara, made our first “loop” journey, and were falling in love with the place already. And we still had months more to explore and learn all the nooks and nuances of this unspoilt “best secret place in Ireland.”

  So—once again—Sláinte!

  5

  The Magic at MacCarthy’s

  EARLIER I PAID SINCERE HOMAGE TO the late Pete McCarthy and his splendid romp of an Irish travelogue book—McCarthy’s Bar. I also thanked him from the bottom of my soul for luring Anne and me here. “Here” being Beara, Castletownbere, and most specifically, MacCarthy’s Bar on the main square in this hectic little harborside town.

  MacCarthy’s is the kind of Irish pub you enter and fall in love with in nanoseconds. Pete was no exception, and I quote once again with great affection and respect from his book:

  I can sense that this place might be a contender in the Best Pub in the World competition. MacCarthy’s is an effortless compromise. The front half is a grocer’s shop with seats for drinkers; the back half, a bar with groceries. On
the right as you enter is a tiny snug, once a matchmaker’s booth where big-handed farmers arranged marriages between cousins who hadn’t met. Aluminum kettles and saucepans hang from the ceiling, not for show, but for sale. Drinkers sit under shelves of long-life orange juice and sliced bread. There is a fridge full of dairy products. The well-stocked shelves behind the bar display eggs, tinned peaches and peas, Paxo stuffing, custard creams, baking powder, bananas, Uncle Ben’s rice, nutmeg, onions, olive oil, Brillo pads, and soap: good news for hungry drinkers who need a wash.

  The dense, luxuriantly-sculpted pint of stout is five minutes in the pouring, the precise amount of time needed to confess your entire life history to the skilled Irish bar person. I was jolted out of my introspection by a seventy-two-year-old woman who stood on a chair and sang “The Fields of Athenry.” She was a bit wobbly on her pins, on account of having suffered a stroke the previous week, but it went down well anyway. Everyone followed with songs of their own…I was in the dream Irish pub of the popular romantic imagination.

  MacCarthy’s Bar

  And although Pete, from what I remember, didn’t use the word magic in reference to this little gem of a watering hole, you could sense that aura in his words, and I will certainly use it. You see, that’s the thing with MacCarthy’s. You just never know when you open the creaking doors, swinging like those saloon bar doors in a spaghetti western and set in the pub’s bold red-and-black facade, what little dramas and complexities of the human condition you’ll find within. Sometimes, particularly in an off-season afternoon, it’ll be like it used to be, with a couple quietly sharing a pot of tea at a small chipped table in the front snug room where marriages were once arranged like barter-transactions in an Arabian bazaar and where a selection of those vital groceries and other household necessities are on permanent display behind the counter and also over their heads, precariously balanced on little shelves. In the back room, divided from the front by a halfhearted attempt at a screen a yard or so wide and just enough to block the shenanigans of ardent beer-huggers, there’s invariably a couple of local crusties, maybe a shepherd, a farmer, or a fisherman—one of those who sailed in the “small boaties” before the mammoth EU-approved megatrawlers appeared. And the conversation would be slow, measured, and full of serene pauses for joint mental cud-chewing to ingest the riches of shared information or age-honed insights.